Cheap computer deal through 8/15 - new deal!

While you all are on this topic... I recently bought a Panasonic Toughbook on e-bay (should be good for that boating environment... :D). But I'm going to have to get rid of my (too large) multi-function printer. Anyone have a suggestion on good portable printers?
 
Re: Cheap computer deal through 8/15 - new deal!Al

LCD is also much easier on the eyes for reading - I won't go back. After long stretches of time the eyes are less tired with an LCD. I remember reading an article a while back (early 90's?) that this was because the eyes jiggled with the scan line of a CRT-based monitor (the reset of the electron gun to the beginning of the next line of pixels). Though perhaps this was one of Th's "fake" studies? ;-)
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Yep, there is that too, they're a lot softer on the eyes.

And excuse me? Fake? I never faked anything. I simply used a highly discriminative process of reality selection to determine a preferred qualified end state. ;)

Just like everyone else does.

However, I was really good at it. You'd never know I was changing your perceptions until you felt that vaguely uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach that maybe, just maybe, you should pay just a little bit more for that next purchase... ;)
 
Portable printers...

For cheap and not a lot of printing, try
http://www.shentech.com/sia6mopousbs.html

Hard to go wrong for $20. Takes thermal paper though, and if you leave that near the sun or any heat, it'll all turn dark on you. I wouldnt touch this sucker unless I was only printing a page or two every now and then and it was temporary output. Nice for quickie work though.

For a little more, look for a canon BJC-85. They havent made them for a year or so, but I've seen them all over ebay and on some of the overstock/leftover type web sites. Pretty good printer and the ink is widely available. Figure on spending $30-80 depending on condition, whether it includes new ink, and all the accessories.

If you want new, are going to print an awful lot, and dont mind spending more, get the canon I70 or I80, either of which will probably run you $210-230.
 
I have the Canon i80 which I bought both for it's use as a portable printer and for printing good quality color photos. I'm happy with both aspects.
 
The good thing about computers is that the longer you wait, the cheaper they get.

I haven't had the urge to upgrade in a *long* time, but since Doom-3 came out, I've been kicking tires a little bit. None of these amazingly fast and cheap boxes make very good game machines, unfortunately. And I'm not about to spend a grand to play a first-person shooter for an hour.

So, I'm sticking with my perfectly good 366 MHz laptop until the cheap-o boxes can handle Doom-3 and kin, which will probably be in about 3 months.
 
I have an IBM G40 - from work - that has all the features of a desktop but in a laptop configurations
2.8 processor about 1,500.
A bit heavy at 8 - 9lbs and I would be concerned about repair costs.
 
So, I'm sticking with my perfectly good 366 MHz laptop until the cheap-o boxes can handle Doom-3 and kin, which will probably be in about 3 months.
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Did I just hear a glove hit the ground? Really the only thing holding down the above 3000 based machine is the lack of an agp slot for a better video card.

However, try this:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?customer_id=04&kc=01240&oc=s20903f&x=2&y=10

Pentium 4, 2.8GHz, 256MB ram, 40gb hard drive. Technically a server platform but good to go as a workstation as well. Need to bring your own OS as one is not included. As configured, $349 after $100 rebate. VERY expandable as this is intended to be a small business server and can handle RAID, SATA, plenty of memory and disks. Make sure you select the free keyboard and mouse options, they're off by default.

Add this to it:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-331&depa=1
9600xt agp card, $163

Or better still, one of my current very favorite cards:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-352&depa=1
the all-in-wonder 9600xt, $189

The all-in-wonder version brings a high quality tv tuner, fm tuner, encodes and decodes mpeg2 in hardware, has the new remote wonder 2 rf remote, supports dual monitors, and runs both the core and ram at a slightly higher clock rate than the base 9600xt. Oh yeah...use the s-video out to put it on your big screen or, like I do...to your infocus projector for a 10' picture on the wall.

Both will run doom 3 at 1024x768 in "high" quality mode at very reasonable frame rates. Higher resolutions or quality settings buy you no visually perceptable enhancements. Off the top of my head I think you'll get about 25-35fps in this mode, and 60+ in 800x600 "medium" mode. The current ati catalyst 4.9 drivers have doom3 optimizations with more planned for the next couple of releases. Haunting a few of the doom3 enthusiast sites will also give you some great doom3 .CFG optimizations for specific cards. Add another 5-10fps@1024x768 and 10-20 in 800x600 with full optimizations.

Roughly $500 for a machine that can be topped on paper, but probably not in real use.

Half-life2 and Halo2 are both supposed to have more efficient engines than doom3...

Kick butt machine for video work as well.
 
Pretty tempting. The price approaches $800 as you add a little more memory, bigger disk, and the MSFT tax, but it's approaching "cheap enough."

What I'd really like is a laptop with something like the Radeon 9700 for around $1000. They're getting pretty close, but I haven't found one yet.
 
What? You dont have a copy of XP laying around? ::) Add a copy of XP home OEM from newegg (must be bought with hardware, but the video card counts as 'hardware'). Its a full copy, not upgrade...but cant be moved to your 'next' machine like a non-oem version of xp can.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=37-102-151&depa=0
$94

You'll only need more ram if you're doing extensive video editing. I've got 1GB in mine and the charged use is <256MB for everything I do, including light video work. In fact, too much memory can be a little counterproductive...when I reboot I have to wait an extra minute or two for the system cache to be written back to disk. :p

Fry's and outpost.com run regular sales for 160-250gb seagates (my recommended drive) for $49-69 after rebates
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4008252

You could also just order an extra drive with the system...curiously you can buy a 120GB disk from Dell for <$70 but installed in the system, its more. I believe both of these are retail Seagates which carry a 5 year warranty instead of the lousy one year most drives have these days.

You're still only about $650...

However Dell does have their Inspiron 8600 with the 9600 pro turbo chip for $999 and the Inspiron 9100 with the 9800 chip for $1150. The 8600 is nice and light compared to the 9100. I'm not sold on the mobility chips as being good for 3d shooters though...
 
However Dell does have their Inspiron 8600 with the 9600 pro turbo chip....
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Now you're getting very close, but my price went up to $1399 by the time I added the 9600 and a few other goodies. I might leave it in my cart and come back around xmas to see if the price has hit $1000 and the chip got upgraded to a 9700.

What almost sold me was that this particular Dell is one of the few still on the market (other than IBM) with an eraser head -- my favorite pointing device.
 
But...do you realize you can get that hot doom3 desktop machine for $650 AND an inspiron 1150 laptop for $679...?

Or just get the desktop, and by the time you stop DOOMing yourself it'll be past the holidays and I'll probably have found another sub $400 laptop deal like the HP 1.6GHz P4 machine I got late last year for $325...

I like the eraser head pointers too. All we ever used at the old workplace was ibm stinkpads. I think I still have a little spot of callus on my right index finger.
 
Alright, TH, you can tell your old employer you sold another chip :)

I pulled the trigger on a Dell Inspiron 9100 after I found a coupon for 25% off, combined with a $200 rebate, free shipping, and another 2% for signing up for a Dell credit account. I went a little crazy on the config, so I paid a little more than my $1000 threshold, but I'm happy with the price.

It's basically a portable desktop with a 15.4" WSXGA+, 3GHz P4, 60GB drive, 512MB RAM, and a Radeon 9700 w/128MB. That makes it an order of magnitude upgrade over the Toshiba on my nightstand, so as long as I can resist the urge till the next order of magnitude technology improvement, my budget should survive.
 
Unfortunately, I dont own a single share of stock in them, or in dell. I checked all my funds, nada... :(

Sweet rig. Good news is it'll take microsoft 10 years to pile enough crap on there for it to become "slow" again. The hardware has REALLY gotten so far ahead of the software.

I can remember just a few years ago trying to make a rational case as to why someone needed 1GHz...and it was tough.

Although my 2.4GHz rig is starting to feel a little sluggy to me sometimes. Cant justify the dough to bump in a new motherboard and an extra GHz anytime soon...
 
By the way, the 2400 (no monitor) is now at $299 after rebates, and theres a 3000 configuration for $350 with a monitor after rebates on a one-day sale (today only, 10/14).
 
Damn, I hate it when I get into this shopaholic mood....

I decided to buy a refurb'd Dell desktop tonight. It was last year's top-of-the-line model (Dimension 8300's went for like $3000), and I got it for $300 after $600 worth of instant rebates! The video card alone sells for over $200.

But no more for me! I got my fix. In fact, I may cancel my laptop order since this machine actually has a bit more power, and that laptop probably runs too hot to actually sit on my lap.
 
Wab - there are a raft of little 'laptop cooler's that plug into a USB port for power and blow a little cool air on the bottom of the laptop. Pretty effective and inexpensive - $10-20.

Now put down the glass of milk and i'll tell you what I did with my p4 laptop that had a little hotspot on it.

Velcro'd it to an aluminum cookie sheet that was roughly the same size.

Worked like a charm...50c at yard sale.

Your power desktop/old lappie combination may be what you need...you dont really need 3GHz to surf the web and read email from your portable and Doom3 is much better with a real mouse.
 
Velcro'd it to an aluminum cookie sheet that was roughly the same size.
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Probably not a bad idea. Might also protect you from all of the microwave radiation those things emit. Hey, here's something I've often wondered about that you might be able to answer.

Has anybody studied the possible health effects of having all of these low-power microwave emitters sitting a couple of inches from the family jewels? Not that it matters much to me -- I already wear lead underwear :)
 
Well I can state from personal experience that it doesnt do any harm at all. ;)

Either that or the mailman is going to be very, very proud in a couple of months.
:p

Besides dispersing the heat, the cookie sheet prevents my pants from blocking the air intakes for the laptop, which are on the bottom..."hello? Its a laptop? People are going to put it on their laps? Please dont put air intakes in the middle on the bottom?"

Oh well, HP isnt what they used to be...

Good find on the refurb...Dell has quite a nice selection at times and I dont think they're picked over too quickly. Most of them are just returns from people who had some minor problem or didnt want to keep the machine rather than old repaired ones, and I know they go over them with a fine toothed comb before re-releasing them. The quality may be better than a new one as the repair/recert techs are a lot better informed about building and fixing machines than the manufacturing workers.

You can find some occasional great deals on monitors in the refurb section.
 
I canceled the 9100 order after I bought the cheap desktop.   Today, Dell's got a deal on all Inspirons.  $750 off any config over $1500.

Use coupon ZD5$P0NS954P16.

I couldn't resist, so now I have a cheap Inspiron 8600 to go with the desktop  :eek:
 
Sorry Wab, the 4GHz pentium 4's are rolling out. You're obsolete already and havent even received it yet ;)
 
Sorry Wab, the 4GHz pentium 4's are rolling out.  You're obsolete already and havent even received it yet ;)
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I often tell people to buy last year's model since you're always on the bleeding edge of obsolesence with any computer purchase.

But Dell's margins had to be cut to the bone on this latest deal.   Of the $750 I spent on this laptop, I'm sure their COGS had to eat way more than 50% of that, so even with their operating efficiencies, it had to be hard to make a buck off of my purchase.

And I know they lost money on my desktop purchase. There's no way my $300 even covered their COGS.

Oh well, I'm doing my part for the economy by helping Dell make their revenue number (with no margins), and helping Intel stuff their main channel....
 
Oh well, I'm doing my part for the economy by helping Dell make their revenue number (with no margins), and helping Intel stuff their main channel....
Click to expand...

I have them both in my portfolio so we stock holders appreciate your '0' contribution (no pun indended). ;)

MJ :D
 
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